Transforming blood donation experiences
Master thesis
Jan 2021 - Jun 2021
Heart to Heart is a service and interaction design diploma project, exploring how design can improve blood donation in Norway to meet the ongoing need for new donors. Extensive insight work laid the foundation for the project, resulting in a series of prototypes across an improved user journey. The project emphasizes creating meaningful and seamless blood donation experiences to inspire and engage potential donors.
The challenge
Navigating recruitment challenges in blood donation
Despite the vital role of blood in medical treatments, blood banks in Norway face a challenge in recruiting enough donors. Even with a very positive donor experience, 20,000 of Norway's 100,000 donors quit yearly due to various reasons, creating a need for consistent recruitment. Focusing on the potential of individuals who had not considered donating, the aim was to shift perceptions and create a more appealing experience for both existing and potential blood donors.
Inside the blood donation station at Ullevål Sykehus
Self-ethnography gave us a first-person experience of the service
Approach
Exploring the service from the donor point of view
As a service in the process of being digitalized, blood donation was particularly relevant for a cross-disciplinary interaction and service design approach. The process prioritized the donor experience, involving extensive insight work and active collaboration with blood bank staff and non-donors.
The exploration started by understanding motivators and barriers, leading to eight key insights that shaped co-creation with donors and staff. Core values like "seamless" and "meaningful" guided idea evaluation, while nudging principles influenced concept development. Using a new app as a common thread, we iteratively tested prototypes, contributing to realistic and tangible solutions for an improved blood donation experience.
We included donors with a wide variety of backgrounds
Sorting through and analysing user insight
Sketching ideas based on insights
Using nudge theory as actionable prompts for ideation
Facilitating online co-creation workshop with staff
Testing prototypes with users
Outcome
A vision for an improved blood donor experience
The result of this project was a series of design proposals forming a vision for how the blood donor experience and system can be improved, from registration to post-donation engagement. The focus was on making the process more engaging, efficient, and user-friendly.
Impact
Lowering the threshold of becoming a donor
These solutions would undoubtedly simplify and enrich the blood donation experience. Lowering the threshold for donor registration would attract more participants, significantly increasing completed registrations. Norway's preparedness for crisis requiring substantial blood amounts would improve with more registered donors.
Excitingly, our project has now become the foundation for an ongoing innovation initiative, striving to establish a new system for blood donation in Norway. This underscores the transformative potential of the project in reshaping and elevating the entire blood donation process nationwide.
This shows how the proposed features come together in a cohesive whole
Making blood donation visually appealing and engaging
How the blood bank’s own website could look like
The proposed user-experience illustrated in one illustration
Contribution
My contribution and responsibilities
“Adelin played a significant role in the development of the Heart to Heart project by conducting extensive insight work, identifying areas for improvement and creating a user-friendly visual style. Additionally, he was responsible for prototyping and testing app features to ensure user satisfaction. Through Adelin's contributions, the project has a clear and compelling narrative, and has the potential to positively impact the lives of blood donors and those in need of transfusions.”
Leading research phase and user interviews
Concept creation and development
Wireframes and workflows
Creating the brand and visual style for the project
Detailed UI and high-fidelity prototypes
Testing and feedback from users
Reflections
Visual communication played a significant role in creating engagement
The project taught valuable lessons about the complexity of implementing change in a multifaceted system. Considering users, backend, organizational, and even political levels were crucial. The combination of service and interaction design proved effective in exploring this space.
Our work highlighted the importance of taking concepts to a detailed level, making them realistic and tangible. Visual communication played a significant role in engaging both blood bank employees and the public, making blood donation more appealing. Us winning the DOGA award Newcomer created a lot of publicity and attention, which in turn led to the continuation of the project. This has been an incredible journey!
Receiving the DOGA Newcomer Award
Presenting our project at DOGA-dagene